Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (chill pills sold separately at Louisiana-Monroe, where offensive line coach Cameron Blankenship needs some time away from the sidelines to get his act together):
The 12-team College Football Playoff is a wellspring of hope and excitement for dozens of fan bases. But as the losses accrue, it also will be a source of discontent for those who see their chances slipping away. Each week, The Dash will identify those who are dealing with damaged playoff hopes, and gauge their teams’ chances of rebounding from calamity.
The first CFP rankings come out Tuesday night, so it’s about to get real.
Four teams that lost Saturday and no longer control their own playoff destiny in terms of making their conference championship game and potentially earning an automatic bid.
They were bad in all three phases of the game in a shocking, home-field wipeout against the Louisville Cardinals. Clemson missed tackles, lost the line of scrimmage, had two field goals blocked and generally played their most uninspired game of the season. The result: Clemson is 5–1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, 6–2 overall, and dependent upon either the Miami Hurricanes or SMU Mustangs losing at least once in their last three league games, while winning its last two. (And those won’t be easy; Clemson is at the Virginia Tech Hokies on Saturday and at the Pittsburgh Panthers on Nov. 16.)
Clemson’s playoff chances: The Tigers are out right now, and not even on the bubble. They’re lacking quality victories, with a six-game winning streak that was built on empty calories. Their best chance is to backdoor into the ACC title game and win it—which would require something unexpected from either the Hurricanes or Mustangs.
Their annual futility against the Ohio State Buckeyes has pushed them to the periphery in the Big Ten race. Even with a veteran quarterback, the best tight end in the country and two capable running backs, Penn State cannot do enough offensively to win big games. The receiving corps remains pedestrian, and it doesn’t seem to matter who the offensive coordinator is—Penn State is going to come up short of the needed big plays. Same sad song, different verse.
Penn State’s playoff chances: The Nittany Lions should get to 11–1, which is probably enough to get them in the bracket. But the only way to go for sure is to win the Big Ten, and the path to Indianapolis for that championship game appears blocked. Both Oregon and Indiana remain undefeated in the league (and overall), and Ohio State would win a tiebreaker with Penn State as of now. The team that could help the Lions? The Michigan Wolverines, who play both Indiana and Ohio State.
Their stunning loss to the Houston Cougars relegates K-State to a tie for fourth in the Big 12. The Wildcats’ 89 rushing yards were their fewest in 13 games, as an essential part of the Chris Klieman offense broke down.
Kansas State’s playoff chances: Never give up hope in the bewildering Big 12, but the Wildcats need help. They are 4–2 in league play, with the BYU Cougars 5–0 and both the Colorado Buffaloes and Iowa State Cyclones 4–1. K-State could get the nod for the Big 12 title game over Iowa State by beating the Cyclones, if both finish 7–2, but the Wildcats would need someone to take down the Buffaloes. (They would also lose a head-to-head tiebreaker with BYU, if it came to that.)
Their dream season hit a harsh reality check in Dallas, being routed by SMU. The Pitt defense gave up season highs in points (48), yards (467) and yards per play (6.97), while failing to produce a turnover.
Pitt’s playoff chances: With a schedule light on quality wins, the Panthers at the very least need to win out (including beating Clemson) to get to 11–1. That would keep them in the at-large argument. But even at 11–1 they wouldn’t be assured of an ACC championship game berth if Miami and SMU stay unbeaten in league play. And SMU now owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Pitt.
Mike Elko’s debut season in College Station, Texas, has been really good, but this was a foreseeable trap. The erstwhile SEC leaders fell apart in Williams-Brice Stadium, getting outscored 24–0 in the second half by the South Carolina Gamecocks. They looked like an overachieving team that was exposed a bit, giving up a boatload of big plays, missing tackles and missing assignments.
Texas A&M’s playoff chances: With two losses, the Aggies are living on the edge. But they still have a direct—albeit challenging—path. If A&M beats New Mexico State and Auburn as expected, then wins the looming Armageddon rivalry resumption with Texas on Nov. 30, it will play in the SEC title game. Win that and the Aggies are in. A close loss to finish 10–3 might even have them in the conversation, but that would depend on a number of other factors.
Their undefeated run screeched to a halt in a come-from-ahead home loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders by a single point, 23–22. Iowa State’s normally reliable defense gave up second-half touchdown drives of 98 and 71 yards, the latter of which produced the winning touchdown in the final minute. Tech converted a fourth-and-7 on the winning drive, and the 98-yard march was enabled by a personal foul that overturned an interception that could have set up an easy Iowa State score. With a team of decent but not great talent, these are the margins of victory and defeat.
Iowa State’s playoff chances: There is no margin for error, but if the Cyclones win out and Colorado loses once, they would get in the Big 12 title game. If both Iowa State and the Buffaloes finish 8–1, it would go to tiebreakers (presuming undefeated BYU keeps winning). If Iowa State finishes 11–1 and doesn’t make the title game, that record would at least put it under at-large consideration. But right now, the Big 12 looks like a one-bid league.
After starting 6–0, they followed up a meltdown loss to Notre Dame with a five-hour weather delay at Rice on Saturday. When the game finally was played, Navy took a two-touchdown loss to an opponent that fired its coach last week.
Navy’s playoff chances: All but gone. Even if the Midshipmen win the American Athletic Conference championship, they likely wouldn’t get a bid over another Group of 5 champ (like the Mountain West).
Like Navy, the Tigers did their best to end playoff hopes with a surprising upset loss in the state of Texas. Memphis’s came at the hands of UTSA, which was just 3–5 coming into the game.
Memphis’s playoff chances: Forget it. The Tigers need at least two of the three teams ahead of them in the AAC standings to fall apart down the stretch, and even if they somehow got into the title game and won, they wouldn’t be a strong G5 bid contender.
Prior lapses that still sting and could be costly:
The Big Ten commissioner has four playoff contenders (see below), but some close nonconference losses have curtailed two other teams—and could hurt the league’s overall strength. The Minnesota Gophers are 6–3 and 4–2 in the Big Ten, and lost their opener at home to the North Carolina Tar Heels by two points after missing a pair of field goals. The Iowa Hawkeyes are 6–3, 4–2 in the league, and lost to rival Iowa State, 20–19, on a 54-yard field goal to squander a 19–7 lead.
They’re 6–2 and 3–2 in the ACC, a very nice debut season for coach Fran Brown. But the one that got away was a bad one—Syracuse lost at home to the Stanford Cardinal on a last-play field goal in September. The last drive included a fourth-and-9 conversion in which Cuse single-covered the Cardinal’s best receiver, who made a catch for 27 yards to move the chains into field-goal range. Stanford is now 2–7 and hasn’t won since that game.
Each week The Dash projects the 12-team playoff field as if today were Selection Sunday. As always, the rankings are based on what has actually transpired this season, not preseason predictions.
On the bubble: Alabama, LSU, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Iowa State, Pittsburgh, Army, Tulane, Louisiana.
First-round games: Boise State at Indiana; Notre Dame at Ohio State; Penn State at Texas; Tennessee at SMU.
First-round bye: Oregon, Georgia, BYU, Miami.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.
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